Summertime - my creative energy has shifted to spending time with my own children, teaching art classes, taking photographs and painting when I can carve out quiet blocks of time. :)
In last week's 'Leapin' Lizards' class, students created 2-dimensional drawings and 3-D sculptures. The enthusiasm of this group was contagious! One of the boys came in one morning - a huge grin on his face - and said, "I just can't stop smiling!" When I asked him why, he replied, "Because I'm at art class!" Apparently, he was up early, all ready to come... 2 hours before class started. Love it! Each student chose their own lizard picture to work from and we spent the week observing shapes, creating textures and mixing colors - AND getting our hands all slimy with papier mache!
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Drawing bikes with my students: I brought one of my boy's bikes into our studio space. After looking for and drawing the details on the bicycle, we took things a step further by choosing a shape and/or line found in the bike to create a unique pattern for the background. When it came time to choose colors, each student selected a color harmony - complementary (opposites in the color wheel), analogous (neighbors on the color wheel) and neutrals are shown here. Light and dark values give the pattern a bit of contrast. Click here for a schedule of upcoming children's classes.
Springtime in art class meant drawing some frogs and bicycles. There was quite a bit of drawing practice as each student enlarged a small tree frog photo onto 9x12 black paper. Just trying to figure out where all those toes go was a bit tricky! Using oil pastels, the kids then mixed colors and values (lights and darks). Rich, vibrant results! I will post the bike drawings tomorrow.
Click here to see a schedule for upcoming children's classes. I am grateful for a quick tour of the Maternal Fetal Medicine suite at Central DuPage Hospital here in Winfield, IL - to see my 'babies' in their new home. Praying for hope and healing for the mamas receiving treatment in this area! I have mixed feelings about my paintings heading out the door - but I'm always glad when they find a good home! A friend spotted 'Mutual Adoration' - now hanging at Delnor Hospital in Geneva, IL. I have yet to see it, but I believe it is in a central registration area. 'After Winter Comes Spring' has been chosen for Delnor Hospital's Cancer Center - currently in the design and construction phase. On Wednesday afternoons, I have had the privilege to create with these fantastic jr. high kids. (Seriously, they are the nicest kids!)
Here are some of their amazing accomplishments: © Dawn Eaton, Growing Like a Weed, 22x28 in., acrylic on 1 1/2 in. wrapped canvas This one has been hanging around the studio for months! It needed somethin' somethin' and I couldn't seem to wrap it up. So, I took more photos, started a smaller version in watercolor and kept working with the values and the layers of color. And the pieces of the puzzle finally came together. 'Growing Like a Weed' is about determination and rapid growth. It's about flourishing. I have also been painting tulips on miniature canvases and I am teaching a Tulip Time workshop this Saturday morning (April 27th, 2013) from 9:30-11:30am.
I think these little cuties will make special Mother's Day gifts (Sorry to spoil the surprise, Mom!) Click on a tulip or send me an e-mail for more information about purchasing a miniature tulip or attending the workshop. © Dawn Eaton, Precious in His Sight, 5x7in.,oil on gessoboard Precious
I looked at the tree branches outside my window and saw them! BRIGHT GREEN BUDS! (I did a double take to make sure they were really there.) At the first real signs of Spring, it hit me, "Whoo...it's been a long winter." The hardest part of winter for me are the gray overcast days. (I'm writing from Chicagoland.)
Blah. It's like being in neutral - do you stop? do you go? Gray feels like indecision or a needling anxiety. Motivation starts to run low. A string of gray days can feel like a lingering sadness that you can't seem to shake loose. But Spring is here! (Did I forget that it was coming?!) Bright green buds on winter branches - it's a natural picture of hope. I've been listening to a podcast about hope, by a man named Kris Vallotton: Here are some of my notes: "Hope is the confident expectation that good is coming and faith is the ability to see the good that is not yet visible." "Hope is the seedbed that faith grows in...Once I lose hope, I stop believing." "Hope grabs my soul and tells me something good is going to happen to me." "Hope gets me off my couch and onto the front porch so I begin to seek... to look with earnest expectation and anticipation." "My hope is not in my ability, but in my God and who He is." "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful." - Hebrews 10:23 "But I am trusting you, O Lord, saying, 'You are my God! ... So be strong and courageous, all you who put your hope in the Lord!" - Psalm 31:14, 24 Inspired by the desire to be filled. "My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you." - Psalm 63:5
"I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God." - Ephesians 3:16-19 "I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called--his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance." - Ephesians 1:18 Yeah - like that. At the beginning of class, I held up images of Kandinsky's paintings. One of my students declared, "That's not art stuff!" Exactly the kind of reaction Wassily Kandinsky received when he exhibited his work in the 1900's. Can you imagine?! At the time art was all about making things look real! I went on to explain... Instead of a making a realistic picture, Kandinsky wanted to express emotions using lines and color. He was very inspired by music. He was one of the first artists to paint abstract pictures. He was also involved the development of Expressionism. While listening to Mozart's Serenade No. 13 in G Major 'A Little Night Music', Allegro, my painting class of 1st and 3rd graders expressed themselves in much the same way. Using lines, shapes and color, they expressed what they heard and felt in the music. By the end of class, that same young artist was enthusiastically giving titles to this different way of doing art - "Color Sound" & "Color Power". I am captivated by the results! "I applied streaks and blobs of color onto the canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I could...” If you are interested in the steps in the lesson after introducing Kandinsky:
I also taught this lesson with the 3rd graders at my sons' school. This time, we listened to David Brubeck's Blue Rondo A La Turk. (There is a significant tempo change about 2 minutes in.) I don't have the photos or the permission to post those - I wish I did! I am not an abstract painter, but in my contemporary floral paintings, I definitely use color and shape to express and evoke emotion.
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Dawn Eaton
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